How Augmented Would You Like Your Reality? Part 2

Will augmented reality be a triumph of information delivery, or a metaphorical millstone around our necks?

In the case of navigation, we typically think of an automotive experience as depicted above, but I've spent a lot of time on foot wandering around strange cities. Let's assume that I've given my augmented reality system the name "Maximillian" and that responds to (only my) spoken commands. I can envisage exiting a hotel in San Francisco, saying something like "Maximillian, show me the way to Fisherman's Wharf," and having a faint dotted line or arrows or whatever be unobtrusively overlaid on the scene in front of me.

When I was a student living in Sheffield, England, all of my friends would be calling each other early in the evening to decide where we would be going that night. This was before the days of cellphones, so once a plan had been made, everyone tended to stick to it (unlike my son and his friends, whose plans seem to undergo a continuous morphing process). Once one was out and about, there was no way to know where everyone else was.

Now consider an augmented reality scenario. Suppose I could see recent virtual tracks (lines or arrows hovering just above the ground) left by my friends. These tracks could be color-coded for each friend, and -- by default -- could fade away over time. Alternatively, as I passed a bar, for example, some form of a visual indication could inform me if anyone I knew was in there. Or perhaps I could call up a bird's eye view of the immediate area to see where all of my friends were currently located. (Note that many of these capabilities are already available as smartphone apps -- I'm simply extrapolating them to an augmented reality delivery system.)

Apropos of nothing at all, have you seen the latest quadcopter drone from Parrot? It's called the Bebop (who can comment first as to why this name has a special significance to me?). Check out this BBC video. It's well worth watching the whole thing, but an especially interesting part starts around the 1'34" mark when the operator uses an Oculus Rift to see the world through the eyes of the drone. Judging by his exclamations this is pretty impressive. I would really like to see what he is seeing. But we digress…

Suppose you were in the market for a new house. It's a Saturday morning and you are walking or driving around a new subdivision. Can you imagine an augmented reality scenario whereby details of the houses that are available for sale appear superimposed over them, including things like price, size, number of rooms, and special features? How about being able to quickly access additional information like the builder's reputation with the better business bureau and the quality of the local schools?

This all sounds quite benign and useful, doesn’t it? But now suppose that by simply looking at the neighboring houses that had already been sold, you could access details about their occupants. How much did they pay for their houses, for example? How many people live there? How many children are there (and what ages)? Does the home owner's association have liens on any of the properties? Where do the occupants work? Have any of them been convicted of any crimes?

I have a terrible head for names and faces. Things get really bad if it's someone I used to work with at a company 20 years ago, or perhaps someone I met at a conference a few years ago. At official functions, people like the Queen of England have assistants who whisper the names of the people she's about to meet into her ear. I would love for my Maximillian augmented reality system to be able to do the same thing.

As I'm walking through the mall, for example, its facial recognition software could identify people with whom I am in some way acquainted and indicate them to me (perhaps using flashing arrows over their heads -- maybe using different colors to indicate different levels of acquaintanceship). As we approached Maximillian could superimpose additional information on the scene (or whisper nuggets of knowledge in my ear) as to the person's name along with the names of their partner and children and so forth. It would be especially useful if Maximillian reminded me that we used to work at Company XYZ 20 years ago. Maybe Maximillian could access LinkedIn to see where my acquaintance works now. Perhaps Maximillian could also check Facebook and Twitter and alert me to any additional information that may be of interest, such as the fact that it's my acquaintance's birthday, or the fact he just got divorced and 30 seconds ago he Tweeted that he's going to beat up on the next person he sees.

As it happens, I'm simply in the habit of quoting Douglas Adams ( author of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" book series ) at every available opportunity. This is not simply due to my sharing the same first name ( which I've never liked... rhythmically, it does not sync well with my last name... and besides, my parents named me for General MacArthur, for some inexplicable and unknown reason ), or to my having been approximately the same age ( ... well, maybe that is somewhat related to it, after all... ).

More to the point, it's because Adams, himself, is no longer around to satirically comment on technological issues, such as this one. And I generally like to remind everyone that he would likely have had quite a lot to say about it.

For the most part, Adams would probably have liked these ideas.

However, as in all things human, we should always be prepared for the potential of negative consequences, and take heed of those cautionary tales that offer warning. Adams, who died while exercising at the the age of 49 due to an "undiagnosed heart ailment", and who could just possibly have been one of the great wits of our current age had this not happened, was particularly good at telling such stories.

And besides, all of the possibilities that arise from translational and contextual misunderstandings ( whether wholly the product of human error, or of circumstances catastrophically amplified by machine or device interaction ), those both spoken and in print, have been ripe for the stuff of situational humor for a long long time.

@Douglas442: Your concern shows, but I don't think that the example you gave necessarily fits into this picture. Voice recognition systems and translation systems would be a common thing in cars, also I think having a connected car means increased passive assistance from a helpdesk that monitors your car's connection to the cloud.

@Garcia: Nicely said. People need to be educated about the information they seek and give out during their stay on the internet. With the mixing of various technologies, the thin line between user privacy and information collection is getting blurrier by the minute. We wouldn't like to see that happen now, would we?

A while back Nokia introduced the CityLens on their smart phones, an app that allows the user to know about the city he's in through the camera interface. The app told him the location of hospitals, restaurants etc based on the input picture through the camera. This type of graphically pointing interface can be employed on the windshields of cars, and would probably become a reality at some point because of the ongoing IOT revolution.

@KTaylor: This coming Friday (23 May) the EETimes Live Online Chat will be all about Augmented Reality (my blog on this chat should go live in about 20 mins) it woudl be great if you could join us -- maybe you could ask Jeri to join us also?

@KTaylor: Altera FPGAs are in Jeri Ellsworth's castAR glassses which she's been demoing. Check them out at Maker Faire this weekend in San Mateo.

I SO want to go to that -- in fact just yesterday my boss said "do you want to fly out to CA to attend the Maker Faire" and I had to say no because my mother-in-law arrives tomorrow (Saturday) to attend my son's graduation so I'm not allowed to go anywhere (sad face).

Will you be there? If so, if you see Jeri, please telll her I'd love to do a phone interview with her about her castAR glasses

@Ktaylor: I think the ability to see an "enhanced" view of a car that needs repair where the AR app guides you through the repair (applying jumper cables let's say) to your specific car is one I'd use.

I totally agree. It's my son's high scghool graduation next week. We're having a family party afterwards -- the guys in the next office do exhibits for shows -- they kindly printed me a 7' tall collarge of photos -- but when it came to the stand, the guy who knows how to make it unfold and work was away -- it defied a bunch of engineers to work it out -- rthen someone thought to look on YouTube and -- blow me down -- there was a video showing how to do it.

That was tremendously useful, but it would have been even better to have had AR with arrows pointing at levers and a voice saying "twist this 45 degrees clockwise then pull it towards you ..."